An Unholy Alliance : Sickbay's Lethal Ladies
by Avirra
Summary: Star Trek AOS Mirrorverse. A short study of each of McCoy's loyal and deadly nurses. While I will not be getting graphic, some of your minds might follow further down the path the story implies, so I will warn about the possible squick factor.
1. Christine Chapel

**Stardate 2236.265**

Sitting in her bedroom, ten-year-old Christine Chapel was bored. Bored, bored, bored. But boredom wasn't her problem. Well, not her only problem.

The biggest problem she was facing was that her eleventh birthday was less than a month away - the cutoff age if she seriously wanted to pursue a profession in the Empire. That was a two-edged sword. If she declared an interest, that was it. You couldn't decide a few years down the road that you'd made a mistake. That meant you would be charged with wasting the Empire's resources and, unless your family had the money or clout, you became a literal slave to the Empire, working for a set period to pay the Empire back for the wasted education. If a girl was found attractive enough, that meant she would become someone's sex toy. If unattractive, she would find herself a servant of a powerful household. Very few that entered a household as a slave servant lived long enough to work off their debt and regain their freedom.

Boys didn't have that problem but, as Christine's mother had pointed out to her, girls didn't have to worry about press gangs, so in a way, it all evened out. Besides, fair or not, it was the way it was and complaining about it certainly wouldn't change it.

The windows rattled as her entire house shook. Eyes wide, Christine went to the window in time to see the fireball still in the air. Without hesitation, she ran from her room to she what had happened.

Whether the incident was an assassination made to look like an accident or an actual accident was something Christine never learned as she got close enough to see the remains of the shuttle that had crashed. The responders were short handed and one of them spotted her watching. Despite her age, he called the girl over to help move the bodies - well, more like body parts - out of the way. Knowing better than to disobey, she quickly moved to help, flinching at the heat coming from the wreckage.

She was in the process of pulling away a torso when it dawned on her that the excitement she was feeling wasn't from the proximity to the wreck. It was the bodies. They fascinated her and drew her in as nothing ever had before. She wanted to continue to touch them, explore them. See how they were put together. By the time the accident was cleared, Christine had a career goal. She simply needed to figure out what profession the Empire needed that would give her access to more bodies.

* * *

In the end, requesting to train as a nurse was a given. Christine had always been an excellent, but unmotivated, student. Once given the preliminary materials to study in order to access aptitude, she literally memorized all of it and passed the entrance exams with flying colors. Choosing nursing increased the odds that she would eventually be enlisted into Imperial Starfleet, but that thought didn't deter her. In fact, the possibility of dealing with the corpses of non-humanoid races practically made her mouth water.

Christine exceled in her classes and, as expected, was called to serve in Imperial Starfleet. At the hospital located on the Academy grounds, she worked diligently and keep her ears open. When she learned that Doctor Puri was destined for the CMO position of what was to be the jewel of the Imperial Fleet, she quickly took steps to come favorably to the notice of Nurse Scyber - Doctor Puri's favorite nurse who was bound to become the Head Nurse on the Enterprise and, as such, would doubtless have input as to who should be part of the nursing staff.

It was a good thing that Christine had taken pains to keep up her class rankings because it quickly became obvious that Puri was only picking the best for his Sickbay. Between her grades, her work ethics and the approval of Nurse Scyber, Christine made the cut.

Her elation was short-lived as the Enterprise left far sooner than expected and barely avoided the trap that decimated the rest of the fleet. Worse, both Doctor Puri and Nurse Scyber were killed when Sickbay took a hit.

She began to hope again when Doctor Leonard McCoy was told to take over and she, by simply having been at the right place at the right time, became his second in command and eventually, his Head Nurse. He even gifted her with a pendant that some women might have taken as an insult as it was a mark saying that she belonged to him, but Christine knew what he meant by that gift. As long as she wore it, no-one else on the ship could demand sexual favors from her, even if they outranked her, without being given permission by the Doctor.

As they had waded through the bodies of the dead and dying, he noticed her tendencies and smiled, promising her that she would be the one to assist him with the autopsies when things had calmed back down. Not long after, she was assisting him in an actual surgery, helping as he removed an alien creature from the spine of Captain Pike. The sure and steady way McCoy sliced into flesh gave her goose bumps and Christine could scarcely wait until she could witness those hands performing an autopsy.

Things became steadily better after Kirk took over command of the ship and McCoy began to shift the Sickbay to his own preferred methods. He interviewed each nurse individually and encouraged them to pursue their own interests as he provided the materials for them to work with - normally those who had displeased their new Captain. If Captain Kirk wanted someone punished off-the-books, a visit to Sickbay either brought them into line or brought them into Christine's eager hands.

As Head Nurse, Christine Chapel and the nurses under her command were rightly feared. By mutual agreement, they guarded their CMO and their kingdom with a fervor that Kirk often wished the Security forces would emulate. Unlike the rest of the ship, their first loyalty was to Doctor McCoy, then Captain Kirk with the Empire falling a distant third. There was a slight disruption when Pike stole the ship and threatened McCoy, but that only lasted a year before order was restored.

Smiling as she assisted in the skinning and autopsy of some salt-sucking creature that the Captain had recently killed, Christine hummed to herself. She had definitely made the right career decision.


	2. Layali Minyawi

**Stardate 2238.16**

The cry of a newborn rang out as the mother who had just delivered it grasped her husband's hand as they awaited the official word.

"Congratulations, Ensigns Minyawi - you have a daughter."

The husband leaned over to kiss his wife's sweaty forehead before nodding at the doctor.

"You mean another daughter, Doctor Bakhoum. This little one has three sisters awaiting her at home."

Okpara Minyawi smiled at the tiny bundle. His grandfather would fuss about yet another girl, but he was quite content with his bevy of daughters. Their futures were already planned in part. With Okpara already showing the wit and strength to rise in the ranks of Security branch of Imperial Starfleet and Harere, their mother who was acknowledged as one of the most gifted interrogators of her generation? Imperial Starfleet was their birthright.

Under the watchful eyes of Okpara and Harere, the four sisters - Nafrini, Oseye, Shashai and Layali - grew up beautiful, strong and skilled in several forms of combat. They taught their daughters that they would support any career choice but one - none of Okpara's daughters would become a Captain's Woman.

Fortunately, that was not a path that appealed to any of the girls with a well-respected woman like Harere as their mother and example. As eldest, Nafrini chose her path first and she followed in the footsteps of Harere, studying to be a interrogator. Oseye also chose that path. Shashai was always interested in sports and had little love for studying, so she took her father's path to Security.

Layali was the odd chick in their nest. Quiet, but gifted with a voracious intellect, she surprised everyone in her family when she announced that she wanted to become a nurse. That would allow her to study the two things that intrigued her the most - blood and scars.

As promised, Okpara and Harere supported her decision. Among those that Okpara had served with in the past was a doctor named Rajinder Puri. Even better, Doctor Puri had once said he owed Okpara a debt for preventing an assassination attempt on Lieutenant Commander Christopher Pike. Okpara took the chance and contacted Doctor Puri to see if he had been serious. He had been and thus Layali Minyawi entered Imperial Starfleet Medical for training under the watchful eye of a much-feared doctor as her patron.

Layali concentrated her studies around blood - phlebotomy and hematology. She also studied etiology and epidemiology, learning how to cause diseases, shape scars and many other useful skills that would be desirable for a member of a starship's medical team.

Puri as a mentor had another positive side effect - when Puri was choosing who would be on the medical team for the ISS Enterprise, he already knew of her and her class rankings. Her father practically beamed with pride when, at the relatively young age of 20, his youngest was chosen to be part of the Enterprise crew. He was further pleased when he learned that Doctor Leonard McCoy would also be part of that crew. He and the doctor had interacted before and McCoy's mixture of talent and ruthlessness had impressed him in a way few in the Medical track ever had. The respect was mutual and McCoy privately promised Okpara that he would keep an eye on his youngest.

* * *

When the Sickbay took a hit during the attack by Nero, Layali was among those badly injured. So badly injured that, had she not been the daughter of Okpara Minyawi and had anyone other than McCoy been giving the orders, she might have been harvested for organs instead of healed. By the time she was aware again, Puri was dead, Nero was dead, Pike had been transferred back to Starfleet Headquarters to recover, the Enterprise was under the command of Captain James Tiberius Kirk, and the new CMO was none other than Leonard McCoy.

Best of all, McCoy highly disapproved of any dissent in Sickbay. There was no need for competing with one another when each of them could take a specialty for their own and Head Nurse Chapel was in full agreement with his philosophy. With her fellow nurses as united group of allies instead of her rivals, Layali was able to concentrate on adapting what she had learned at the Academy hospital to real world applications. She was proud to be part of the elite clique called the Lethal Ladies.

Under McCoy's tutelage, Layali had blossomed. When she was promoted following her recovery, McCoy presented her with a set of high quality knives, teaching her what each different style was best for. He had her practice skinning on corpses before allowing her to work on living subjects. He also showed her new ways to form scars and how to make them more pronounced. Layali had a deft enough touch that soon the Captain requested her specifically whenever he wanted a crew member marked with a permanent reminder.

Relaxing after a long shift with a cup of strong coffee, Layali pulled a PADD to her and began to compose a note to her parents about the latest species she had skinned for addition to the Emperor's collection - they had called themselves Vians. Taking another sip of coffee, she gave a contented sigh. Life was good aboard the ISS Enterprise.


	3. Paquita Lopez

**Stardate 2257.26**

Sitting in a holding cell small enough that she could touch all the walls without moving, Paquita Lopez was quiet. She knew all too well that making any sort of fuss would draw attention to her and one thing that was best in a place like this was to be ignored.

She had no idea why she had been arrested by a pair of security in-between of her classes at the Academy and brought here. Her father was surgeon and her mother was a member of the Imperial Diplomatic Corp. Had one of them done something to displease the Emperor? Paquita didn't see how that could be possible. Eusebio Lopez was as non-political as it was possible to be as a doctor in the Empire and her mother, Genoveva, spent the majority of her time expertly smoothing ruffled feathers.

Shivering, Paquita tried to stay calm, but small spaces and her did not get along. She wasn't claustrophobic, not really. Still, small rooms like this made her feel like the air was running out.

There was a noise at the door and she stiffened, not sure what to expect. What she saw was the last thing she expected - Cadet Misti Cronin, flanked by the same Security that had arrested her and brought her to the cell.

Misti Cronin was a fellow student who was also in the Medical track, but whose scores were pretty well proof that the only reason she was still in the Academy was due to her parents' position - or perhaps, as some suggested, her looks and willingness to do 'extra credit' work for the instructors. Keeping her face carefully neutral, Paquita took a better look at the two Security men and mentally cursed herself. They weren't actually Security - they were cadets. Cadets nearing their graduation, but still only cadets who would never have been sent to arrest anyone. A trap - and she'd fallen into it like a first-year.

Misti pulled out a hypospray as she smiled at the woman she viewed as one of her competitors.

"If you don't struggle, this won't take more than a minute."

All four cadets froze as a voice spoke up. The man's voice wasn't loud, but it seemed that way in the small space.

"You see, Jim? This is the kind of shit I'm always complaining about. Half-assed half-wits trying to make their own grades look better by eliminating smarter cadets."

Misti's eyes went wide as she turned her head enough to confirm who was in the corridor with her - Cadets Leonard McCoy and James Kirk, nicknamed the Unholy Alliance on the Academy campus. Cadets who went against them had never fared well and some had even disappeared without a trace. Knowing she had to do something, Misti signaled her two henchmen to draw their weapons as she fully turned to face the pair intruding into her business.

"You should both turn and leave now. This doesn't concern you."

A slow smile formed on Kirk's face.

"You see, there's where you're wrong. Talented cadets being eliminated by cadets with no talent other than being born into the right family or being easy? That's weakening Imperial Starfleet. That's lowering the quality of crew that I will have for my ship. So you, Cadet Cronin, are interfering with my future and, perhaps more importantly, you are interfering with the caliber of the Sickbay that Bones here will have when he becomes my CMO."

As his last word was spoken, Kirk fired the phaser that Misti hadn't noticed was in his hand. The two Security cadets hit the floor hard and Misti began to back up, dropping her hypospray as she stumbled over the legs of one of the dead men. She swallowed hard when McCoy retrieved it.

"You can't do this! My family . . ."

McCoy's laughter cut her off.

"My dear, do you think your family will ever know what happened to you? Now, shall we have a demonstration of whatever delightful substance you have here? As I believe you told Cadet Lopez, if you don't struggle, this won't take more than a minute."

Kirk had extended his hand to Paquita and she took it, trying hard to control her trembling. Looking weak in front of these two wasn't wise, but Kirk's attention was more focused on McCoy, though he automatically pulled her to his side and kept her there as they watched Misti's death spasms.

McCoy watched the entire ten minutes it took, making mental notes of all the symptoms so that he could connect them to whatever the substance was when he analyzed it. Once he confirmed her death, he casually glanced back to Kirk.

"More proof she was incompetent. That was considerably more than a minute."

Kirk's chuckle made an involuntary shiver run through Paquita and she continued watched silently as McCoy made use of a communicator. Seconds later, all three bodies had been teleported away. McCoy then walked over as if nothing had happened and checked Paquita over.

"Looks like a light case of shock, Jim. Let's get her some place she can get something hot to eat and drink."

The remainder of the afternoon took on a further surreal edge for Paquita. The two men made certain that the majority of the campus saw her in their company by escorting her to each of her remaining classes for the day. McCoy somehow managed to get her excused from the classes Cronin had caused her to miss so that she wouldn't have to spend time in an agony booth for her absence. Not that she was ungrateful, but she was confused.

At the end of the classes, they even walked her back to her dorm room. She was beginning to wonder if they expected to be rewarded for rescuing her, but McCoy spoke before she could ask.

"I've met your father. Competent surgeon."

Kirk chuckled when he noticed Paquita bristled slightly at the wording.

"Trust me, for Bones to call another surgeon competent is high praise."

Paquita swallowed her nerves and nodded, remaining quiet as McCoy continued talking as if Kirk hadn't interrupted.

"I've seen you in some of your classes. You've got a lot of potential. You'll be ready for assignment about the time the crew will be chosen for the Enterprise's maiden voyage. You're currently in the top five percent of your classes. Make the top three percent by graduation."

Really, there was only one thing she could say to that.

"Yes, Doctor McCoy."

He gave her an almost brotherly pat.

"Good girl."

That said, McCoy turned as Kirk wrapped an arm across his shoulders.

"Come on, Bones. I hear a drink calling our names."

"Better be at least two drinks calling because I don't plan to share."

Paquita walked into her room and went straight into the bathroom, taking a shower hot enough to nearly scald her before getting back out. The top three percent. She needed to start studying,

* * *

As her name was called out to board the Enterprise when the distress call came from Vulcan, Paquita was never totally sure if it was only her scores (the top two percent) or a word from McCoy that got her the posting. She supposed it didn't matter. If neither McCoy or Kirk had requested to bed her after all this time, it was unlikely they'd start now.

The CMO, Rajinder Puri, had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster, but not an unfair one. She was looking forward to learning about real procedures at his side. She and the rest of the nurses scurried around to get everything to his liking as the Enterprise warped toward Vulcan.

* * *

Everything had become a blur. They were being attacked and somehow, Paquita ended up blocked inside of a small room with Christine Chapel, Imarra H'laran, Tina Barrows and Catherine Channing. Between the smell of burned wiring and the tight space, she felt sure they were all going to die there when she heard that voice again.

"Dammit, man! Help me move this away from the door! I have life signs showing inside!"

It was Doctor McCoy again, helping her and the other nurses out of their prison. Even better for all of their frazzled nerves, he immediately gave them something to concentrate on.

"Nurse Chapel, you're with me. Nurse H'laran and Nurse Lopez, following the lieutenant to the temporary Sickbay and help get things ready for use. Nurse Barrows and Nurse Channing, start triage on the ones we've already pulled out of here. Three categories only - dead - dying - viable with minimal intervention. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

As she was leaving, Paquita could hear Chapel asking about Puri, but it was a full day later before she heard the confirmation that Puri was dead and McCoy had been told to take over as CMO. The following days were hard, but they somehow pulled through, even removing some alien slug that the Romulans had put inside Captain Pike. It wasn't until they were on Earth for debriefing that she had any inkling of the sheer enormity of what they had lived through.

* * *

Finally back aboard the Enterprise, Paquita was carefully returning the poison she had been studying to its proper cabinet when she heard the call.

"Nurse Lopez? I need your assistance."

Locking the cabinet, she moved to the side of Doctor McCoy, her CMO and the man who had saved her life twice. There was nothing - absolutely nothing - that she wouldn't do for him.


	4. Imarra H'laran

**Stardate 2252.46**

Growing up on an Imperial colony world wasn't exactly the thrilling adventure the Empire portrayed. Imarra H'laran knew that for a fact even as a teen. Oh, certainly there was plenty of activities for the adults to do, but there were only three children in the whole colony and none of them were the same race or age.

It was worse for Imarra in two ways. One, her parentage was mixed. Her skin was an incredibly light blue that appeared white under most lights. If she arranged her pale blonde hair to cover her small antennae, she could pass as a human but, of course, everyone at the small colony knew better. Two, her parents were both dead. She could not recall her Andorian father at all and her mother was ten years dead now.

Considered to be everyone's problem, but no-one's concern, Imarra grew up angry, but she was canny enough to keep her feelings to herself and learned quickly how to stay below the radar of most of the colony's residents.

It was shortly after her fourteenth birthday that she gained her first and only ally - Vassi Frates, a old nurse that had agreed to move to the colony who was also of mixed race parentage. It didn't take Imarra long to notice that, however they might have felt about her, the adults were careful to be studiously polite to the only real medical assistance available in the colony - their doctor had been cast out of Starfleet for incompetence and no-one trusted him with so much as a family pet's health.

Intrigued, Imarra came out of her seclusion and found Nurse Frates, who was retired from Imperial Starfleet, was very willing to share her experiences and advice. One of those pieces of advice was to shake the dust of the colony off of her boots and apply for Imperial Starfleet, requesting the medical track. There were always more openings that needed filling than there were bodies to fill them, so getting in should be a simple matter. After she gave Imarra an exam to judge her intelligence level, she was even willing to contact the Academy and request an old ally of hers take on the role of Imarra's mentor. Within days, Imarra felt like her head was spinning as she stepped aboard the Imperial transport and left the only world she had ever known behind.

Already used to watching her own back, Imarra took to the Academy like a duck to water. Her specialty quickly turned to osteology and by the time she was halfway through her studies, she could not only name every bone in the bodies of fifteen different humanoid species, she also knew how much force had to be applied and where it had to be applied to break each and every bones that was large enough to bother with. People that tried to touch or grab her without her permission quickly began to regret their indiscretions.

It was after she broke three finger bones of a man she wasn't aware was a bodyguard that she came to the attention of Captain Christopher Pike. It was his bodyguard. He had summoned Cadet H'laran with the intention of punishing the cadet for attacking his bodyguard, assuming the cadet was a burly male. When the pale, slightly built young woman came to attention in front of his desk, he frankly stared at her. A few questions later, his bodyguard was summoned, then fired. He didn't want a bodyguard that couldn't even defend himself against a cadet not only half his age, but also half his size.

Coming to the attention of Captain Pike meant also coming to the attention of Doctor Rajinder Puri and Puri liked what he saw in the young cadet. A deep burning anger that could be directed with the proper training. Seeing the potential for a nurse that could double as an excellent interrogator, he put her on his short list for nurses that he wanted for the Enterprise's staff.

* * *

The day she beamed aboard the ISS Enterprise for the first time, Imarra was both excited and scared, but she projected only calm professionalism on the outside, even after the attack from Nero's ship struck Sickbay, trapping herself and four other nurses in one of the supply rooms. By the time they were rescued, many things had changed - Puri was dead, Pike was badly injured, Cadet Kirk had become Captain Kirk and Cadet McCoy had morphed into CMO McCoy.

She had heard about the two of them at the Academy - honestly, someone would have had to have been in a coma not to have heard of those two. One thing she had heard that she like? Neither cared about race or social status - they cared about brains and abilities. If that was true, imarra figured that she would get along with the new command structure without any trouble.

Her relations with the new CMO and Captain proved to be better than anything Imarra had hoped for. Once McCoy had verified to his own satisfaction that her talent with anatomy wasn't overrated, he recommended her services highly to Kirk whenever he had someone he wanted to question. Occasionally, he wanted McCoy to do the work personally, but as he grew to know her better, Kirk began to ask for her by name. McCoy made sure she had plenty of chances to keep in practice and she was proud to be one of the reasons that ensigns quaked in fear when they entered Sickbay.

Oh, she still had daydreams of returning to the colony and avenging the slights she had suffered under, but for now? The ISS Enterprise was a great place to be.


	5. Anansa Thrani

**Stardate 2257.64**

From her first memories, Anansa always wanted to be a surgeon like her father, Haidar, and his father before him. It was a desire encouraged by her father - he was well positioned in the Empire and could arrange to have her sent to all of the best schools. As she had the brains, the sure eye and the steady hands needed to take full advantage of her schooling, everything looked right on track for her to become the next Doctor Thrani. As was expected, she went to the Imperial Starfleet Academy to complete her schooling and to serve some time as an Imperial officer. She had been promised the rank of Lieutenant after graduation

That ended late one night on the Imperial Starfleet Academy campus. All she could remember is someone tossing something her direction as she was walking to her dorm, then intense pain began and after that, things became a blur of pain and drugs.

When her mind was finally clear enough to think, she found three people by her side - her parents (expected) and Leonard McCoy, a fellow surgeon from her xenobiology class (unexpected). A forth person was lurking nearby - Cadet James T. Kirk. Not unexpected due to McCoy's presence - it was rare to find one man without the other nearby.

As the story came it, it turned out that an agent of an enemy of her father was the one that had tossed something at her - that something had proven to be an explosive. It seemed that the intent had been to kill her, but the assassination attempt had failed primarily due to the fact that McCoy had witnessed the incident and given her to immediate medical attention as Kirk guarded his back.

The hardest thing for Anansa to take was learning that the attack had destroyed her goals of becoming a surgeon. The medical techniques of their age had saved her life, but she had a slight stiffness and sections of numbness in her hands. Not enough to affect 99% of functions, but enough that she could no longer perform the delicate neurosurgery that she had excelled at.

McCoy left not long after she had been told of her loss, his parting words giving her something to think about : "You should think about switching to nursing. With what you know, you could be the best damn surgical nurse in the 'Fleet."

Anansa saw that her father was giving McCoy a speculative look as the cadet exited and rejoined Kirk. When Doctor Puri showed up at Anansa's bedside the next day, none of them had any doubts who had mentioned her to him. A doctor of Puri's stature didn't make it a habit to simply check up on random cadets. His mention of the ISS Enterprise and the type of Sickbay team he intended to assemble gave her a new goal.

With Puri's backing, transferring her credits was simple and she graduated at the top of her classes. As expected, Puri claimed her for his staff the second her grades were finalized. Knowing Puri was his patron, it was no surprise that Leonard McCoy was also part of the Sickbay team. That pleased her because, although she would never say it in Puri's hearing, McCoy was the better surgeon of the two.

* * *

Laying in one of the few operational biobeds, Anansa had reason again to be glad to be on the same team as McCoy. McCoy was determined that he wasn't going to lose any of the Sickbay team to Nero's attack and had their injured on a priority system putting them ahead of everyone except for the senior officers. Among the nurses, McCoy had put her at the top of the priority list as he wanted her assistance for surgeries as soon as possible. In the meantime, Chapel was filling in for that slot.

* * *

The incident with Nero followed by the troubles with Pike were all behind them now and the Sickbay was running smoothly in the way CMO McCoy preferred. Chapel had gained the position of Head Nurse, which Anansa only slightly begrudged her. Chapel had the luck to have not been badly injured and proved herself both capable enough and ruthless enough to back McCoy as he took over the Sickbay following Puri's death.

As for Anansa herself, she was next in command after Chapel, taking over Head Nurse duties whenever Chapel wasn't available. But what really made life sweet for her was being allowed to perform surgeries unsupervised. Oh, McCoy only allowed her to work on the least vital crewmembers, of course, but that was perfectly understandable. She took care of the ship's drudges and allowed McCoy to keep his concentration on the senior officers.

Exchanging a slight smile with Chapel as she prepared to perform surgery on one of the lower echelon engineers with Chapel assisting, Anansa felt content. It wasn't as she had planned for her career to go, but it wasn't a bad compromise.


	6. Tina Barrows

**Stardate 2256.94**

Tina Barrows was no fan of the USS Kelvin. She was only three when one of her mothers became one of the causalities of Nero's attack in 2233. Her surviving mother was devastated, but keep the family going for her and her brother except for an annual falling apart on the anniversary of the Kelvin's destruction.

Both Tina and her brother, Dennis, joined Starfleet. While Dennis decided on the Engineering track, Tina picked Medical. As a nurse, she was competent - not really finding any niche that interested her enough to expend the additional effort. She was out on her first ship, the ISS Discordance, when James Kirk and Leonard McCoy entered the Academy. Word spread quickly and Tina was fully prepared to dislike the son of George Kirk when the ISS Discordance returned to Earth and she went back to the Academy for classes in new Medical procedures and equipment.

Tina had imagined that James Kirk would be a spoiled, entitled brat who had had everything handed to him on a silver platter every day of his life. The reality of the man when she actually met him was so different that she accused the cadet making the introductions of trying to trick her. She was very lucky that Kirk was in a good mood that day and didn't take insult.

Her curiosity tweaked, Tina began studying James Kirk in a similar fashion to how she tackled her other studies. What she saw impressed her. He was gathering a group for himself - one comprised not of yes-men, but of cadets that were at the top of their own fields. Geniuses that challenged him instead of hanging on his every word.

Hearing the name of soon to be launched ISS Enterprise mentioned in conjunction with Kirk, Tina began making her own plans to become part of the crew. Doing that required impressing Doctor Rajinder Puri, who was renown for being a difficult man to impress. Having a tangible goal for the first time, she wrote a paper on the ways that the new medical equipment could be used for interrogations. As the ISS Enterprise was the first starship that would be fitted with this equipment, her instructor forwarded her paper - which earned her top marks - on to the Enterprise's future Captain. Pike, in turn, reviewed that paper with Puri and both were impressed by Tina's inventiveness in equipment usage.

Having expended so much effort to gain a place aboard the ISS Enterprise, Tina was highly disappointed when it seemed that Kirk himself wasn't going to make the cut due to his imaginative solution to the Kobayashi Maru simulation. The ruling went against the Vulcan half breed and for Kirk though and she sighed in relief - short-lived as they all hurried to their ship to deal with whatever emergency awaiting them on the planet Vulcan.

She was in the middle of pulling some supplies from a shelf when the ship lurched. Losing her balance, she blacked out when her head struck a shelf. Coming to with a terrible headache, Tina found she was trapped inside the supply room with three other nurses and no way to free themselves. Fortunately, it wasn't long before they heard the booming voice of Leonard McCoy yelling for help to clear the doorway. Once they were out of the room, Tina's mild concussion seemed too trivial to mention.

Tina didn't question that it was McCoy giving out the orders instead of Puri, she just snapped to work on the task he had given her - triage, remembering McCoy's words.

"Three categories only - dead - dying - viable with minimal intervention."

It was while dividing the bodies into categories that Tina found her niche. Being the one to make the decision of who was going to be treated and who was going to become spare parts gave her a rush that nothing else ever had before. She looked up once and saw McCoy studying her with a smirk on his face as he dame to her and gave her another task - harvesting the blood from the ones she had earmarked for death without killing them. Once her fellow nurse, Anansa Thrani, was back on her feet, McCoy had the two of them working together, harvesting everything viable and then dumping the remains in a designated spot where the new Chief Engineer would teleport them to serve the ship one final time in the matter/anti-matter mix chambers.

* * *

After Nero, settling into a routine under Doctor McCoy proved to be simple. He didn't demand make demands on the nurses and their time - quite the opposite. He had gone out of his way to find what each of them enjoyed best and went to what was occasionally great pains to see that they were indulged as much as possible. Tina continued to triage for the Sickbay and the other crewmen quickly learned that if you ever wanted something treated, you did no piss off Nurse Barrows. No-one got so much as a bandage without going through her first.

When Pike usurped control of the Enterprise from Kirk, Tina seethed. It would have been incredibly simple for Kirk and McCoy to have let the man die, but they had rescued and healed him at considerable risk to themselves. For him to repay that so shabbily showed that he was not a man to be trusted and the profits dropping sharply showed many of the crew felt the same. Ironically, Pike had violated one rule that he had pounded into Kirk - no man, no matter how good, can run a starship on his own - a Captain needs at least a core group that trusts him and that he can trust back.

The year with Pike back in command was a rough one, but eventually, Kirk returned to the chair and Sickbay went back to the efficient machine it had been before that interruption. Moving to a table to share a meal and gossip with Nyota Uhura and Gaila, Tina briefly wondered if the remainder of their tour would be calm. She began chuckling. Calm and the crew of the ISS Enterprise were two concepts that did not go together. And Tina rather liked it that way.


	7. Franca Bierman

**Stardate 2262.2**

Sitting with a cup of tea in one of the Enterprise's communal area, Franca mused to herself how different things would have been on the ISS Enterprise if their half-Vulcan First Officer hadn't gone against Pike's orders. For one thing, she herself would have died the day of Nero's ambush.

Franca had known for quite some time that she was supposed to be aboard the ISS Farragut. Captain Chenowyth had unsuccessfully pursued her mother, Isabel, losing her to an Admiral who took her as one of his consorts. Chenowyth might have been unsuccessful with taking the mother, but he had set his sights firmly on Franca from her first day at the Academy.

It didn't particularly bother Franca. Her mother had taught her that being the beautiful daughter of a beautiful woman had a few drawbacks, but they were compensated in many other ways. One other thing her mother taught her? Take advantage of good looks, but don't rely on them. There will always be someone prettier and younger in the wings.

With her mother's wise words in mind, Franca had chosen to study as a nurse specializing in medical research, specifically drug manufacture and refinement. That also led her to the study of the natural sideline to drug development - poisons. She had what seemed to be a natural affinity for the chemistry aspects of her studies and stayed near the top of her classes.

It wasn't long before graduation when the distress call came from Vulcan and Franca lined up with the other cadets who were waiting for their names to be called. Then they would all go to their assigned shuttles and join their ships.

Franca wasn't paying close attention since she already knew her assignment. She spent her time glancing over the other cadets as the half-Vulcan called out the names and assignments.

"Cadet McCoy - Farragut. Cadet Uhura - Farragut."

Happening to look their direction, Franca noted that neither Cadet McCoy or Cadet Uhura looked pleased. In fact, Cadet Uhura looked furious.

"Cadet Bierman - Enterprise. Cadet Thorndike - Enterprise."

It took a moment for the name of the ship to register with Franca, but as soon as it did, she realized why McCoy and Uhura were angry - they had been pulled from the Enterprise by the half-Vulcan and he had picked two random members of the Farragut's crew to replace them. She went willingly onto the Enterprise's shuttle, but knew that she wouldn't want to be in Spock's shoes once Captain Chenowyth discovered the switch and who had done it. Chenowyth had already killed at least three other officers she knew of to keep her for himself.

* * *

Of course, in the end, Spock didn't need to worry about Captain Chenowyth. He died along with the rest of the crew of the Farragut in Nero's ambush. A shiver ran through her at how easily she could have been among the dead and she took another sip of her tea to steady herself.

Things really had worked out for the best. Once Doctor McCoy discovered that they shared a love of poisons, he took her on as his personal research assistant and, in that role, had learned of many exotic poisons that she'd never even heard of before. Even better, he allowed her to pursue developing new toxins and was generous about providing test subjects for her to test them on. He had directed her research into in new area that fascinated her - poisons that weakened and caused pain without killing them, pointing out to her how much the patents to those types of poisons would be worth. Anything that could be added to an interrogator's arsenal was worth good money in the Empire to the point that, even after she paid the shares due to her CMO and the Enterprise, she could still become quite wealthy.

She finished off the last sip of tea as she watched as Lieutenant Simowitz doubled over with a severe cramp. Smiling wickedly, she strolled over near him.

"That looks painful. If I were you, I'd go to Sickbay immediately."

Lieutenant Simowitz's eyes widened comically as he both recognized her and put together exactly who she was. He hadn't been sober enough to register what woman he had tried to pull into his room the night before. Laughing, Franca left him there with his friends as she made her way to her shift, wondering if he'd have the nerve to come into her territory for treatment.

She certainly hope so.


	8. Catherine Channing

**Stardate 2255.7**

Ever since she was small, Cathy's goal was to become the CTO of an Imperial starship. Her father, Lieutenant Commander Vincent Channing, had been Chief Torture Officer on the ISS Desolation before his sudden death due to a catastrophic failure aboard his vessel. It was his death that altered Cathy's own path.

Going into the Imperial Starfleet Academy with a well-connected father was one thing. Going in as the daughter of a dead man whose connections were no longer acknowledging any previous agreements with her family? That was quite was another. It was Randall, a cousin that her father had once helped, who came to Cathy's aid. While too young to have much influence himself, he had current experience in the fleet and strongly recommended that she shift her focus from the torture track to medical.

While she saw the wisdom of entering the classes that weren't so male-heavy, Cathy disliked giving up her dream job. Scoffing at her, Randall named off a half-dozen torturers who had started off in the medical field, one of them had actually become the CTO of his ship, so she might still reach her goal.

A few horror stories from other women that had attempted the straight-forward path convinced Cathy. Shifting career goals at her age would have been a problem had it not been for the fact that new personnel for the medical field were always in demand. Add in that her scores in school were in the top ten percent and the switch was allowed.

Older than the other students in her classes, Cathy fought her way through her courses with a single-minded dedication that drew the attention of Puri when he was monitoring the classes. Her specialized area of study was myology and she enjoyed all the ways that a person's muscles could be made to jump or go slack depending on what she did to them. She also played with steroids and their derivatives, reformulating to alter the muscle mass as well as tweaking the additive qualities of the drugs.

While Cathy's scholastic abilities had drawn Puri's attention, it was looking into her family and coming across her father's records that made him put her on the short-list for the staffing of the ISS Enterprise's Sickbay. Puri didn't care for torture himself, but he had no qualms against providing Pike with a variety of experts to call on when the need arose.

* * *

Lieutenant Catherine Channing had already graduated from the Academy and was serving as an assistant for Doctor Puri while waiting for the ISS Enterprise's maiden voyage. As such, when the Academy students were scrambling to find their assignments, she simply accompanied Puri to the Enterprise. Already well-versed in how he preferred things, Nurse Channing showed the other nurses how to arrange the Sickbay equipment and supplies to meet Puri's standards.

Then? Then Nero rained hell down on the Imperial Fleet. Finding herself one of five nurses that escaped with only minor injuries, Cathy was quickly up to her neck with a constant stream of work. Doctor Puri was dead - Head Nurse Scyber was dead - and beyond the five, the other nurses were too injured to be anything other than patients themselves.

It was fortunate that one of the doctors onboard, one Leonard McCoy, was seemingly born to the role of CMO. He took the reins decisively and firmly, allowing no questioning of his abilities or right to take over. He gave the nurses a firm foundation to cling to and work from.

As Cathy was the oldest and highest ranking surviving nurse, the other nurses watched warily as it became apparent that McCoy and Nurse Christine Chapel were working well together and that Chapel would, in all likelihood, assume the Head Nurse position. Tensions dissipated when Cathy indicated that the position of Head Nurse had no appeal for her. If she'd have been put into that position, it would make it far less likely that she would be called on as a torturer by the Captain.

It was shortly after Kirk regained command of the Enterprise for the second time that she found herself being summoned to appear before the ship's triumvirate - Kirk, Spock and McCoy. There she was offered what she had always desired - the position of CTO aboard the ISS Enterprise. She would continue her work in Sickbay, but her duties there would be secondary to making sure a subject could be interrogated at any time and in any form that best pleased the Captain.

With McCoy's blessing, Cathy listed her fellow nurses, with the exception of Chapel, as her operatives. It was slightly disappointing that so many were intimidated enough by Sickbay's Lethal Ladies that they would confess before she could even get warmed up, but it was a disappointment that she could learn to deal with.


	9. Glory and Iris

**Stardate 2261.711**

As the ISS Enterprise left the planet Stella (formerly Mudd), Kirk called his core group to him and gifted each of them two androids to do with as they pleased. Alice 246 and Trudie 59 were the two given to McCoy.

The very first thing McCoy did was to change their names from their numbered designators to two of his favorite flowers. Thus, Alice 246 became Glory (short for Morning Glory) and Trudie 59 became Iris.

The next thing he did was to enlist Spock's aid to download the Imperial nursing courses into both of their data banks. After that, he had them dress like any other member of his staff and introduced them to his ladies. The hierarchy was simple - the androids would assist any of them, but McCoy's orders would always come first, followed by Chapel's. All of the other nurses were of equal ranking and aiding them would be in the order aid was requested in.

It bothered some of the crew that McCoy spoke to and treated the androids as humans, to the point that he even had them assigned a room. McCoy explained once - and only once - and then only to the Captain.

"They need stimulation and they get bored. Human enough for me."

None of those complaints came from the nurses. They quickly saw the advantages of having Glory and Iris blend in. The pair could do everything from shifting heavy equipment to tending to the needs of a contagious patient. With their numerous sensors, they were the equivalent of a portable biobed and could keep accurate track of a patient's blood pressure, temperature, heart rate and respirations with the touch of a finger. For troublesome patients, they were both stronger and more efficient than the best restraints and could even deal with someone of Vulcan strength if needed.

After conferring with the androids themselves, McCoy found that they operated best if two short periods were worked into their days when they could briefly shut down external functions and process the day's events. Beyond that, they preferred to keep busy and McCoy set up a rotating schedule of things for them to do if there were no overriding orders to take precedence.

With the schedule in place, the Sickbay was close to immaculate and the androids didn't mine handling the less popular jobs in the least. This in turn raised the morale of the other nurses and gave them more time to devote to their research and hobbies.

One of the best parts was the increased security for the Sickbay in general. All outward tells that Glory and Iris were androids had been removed and the nurses had changed their hairstyles for them so that they were no longer identical to others of the same model. That meant anyone coming into Sickbay who was not well acquainted with the staff would not be able to pick out which ones weren't human. Since the first directive McCoy gave them was to protect the Sickbay and the staff, that meant that the few instances of individuals trying to start trouble in the area were quickly taken care of.

To the amusement of Kirk, the androids even followed in the manner of the other nurses in taking up hobbies. Glory had what could be termed a fascination with hair. McCoy found this to be translatable into an excellent torture method - plucking one hair at a time from various areas of the body. It was extremely effective on any species having hair located anywhere around their sexual organs such as the scrotum.

McCoy picked Iris's area of study - arthrology. In particular, she made use of the subjects McCoy provided to her to figure out how much force was needed to dislocate various joints without breaking the associated bones. Dislocation had the obvious advantage of causing lasting, but non-fatal, pain.

All in all, while happiness might not be a feeling that could be attributed to an android, it could be said that both Glory and Iris were quite content with their circumstances.


	10. Gem

**Stardate 2262.352**

Gem was probably the least likely addition to the Lethal Ladies of Sickbay. An empathic alien and the last known survivor of an unknown race, McCoy had been reluctant to have her so near the hive of a great deal of emotions - mostly negative ones.

While it was true that things did happen in Sickbay that would make her wince, Gem gradually wormed her way into the inner circle of Sickbay. Part of it was her desire to remain close to McCoy, with whom she had a father/daughter relationship. Part of it was a fascination with pain and suffering that the Vians had, most likely unintentionally, instilled in her.

There were those among the crew of the ISS Enterprise that considered Gem to be an easy target. She was small, delicate looking and - most important to them - lacking vocal cords and thus unable to scream. It took three incidents for it to dawn on the bottom-feeders that Gem might have looked harmless, but she was very far from helpless.

The first crewman that touched her inappropriately eventually lost all of his reproductive organs to gangrene when she uses her ability to manipulate bodies to cut off the flow off blood to those body parts. The second crewman developed gangrene on his hands. When a third crewman still attempted to assault her, she stopped playing nice.

Screams weren't that unusual coming from Sickbay, but the screams coming from the corridor outside of it drew attention. While the five Engineers inside Sickbay found their injuries miraculously healed, the man outside had all five sets of injuries transferred to him in a span of seconds. The shock was too much and his suffering short as his body shut down. After one look at the remains, McCoy had them left on display in the corridor as an object lesson to the next person that thought any of his people were fair game. The message took and Gem was given a very wide berth from that point on.

The nurses had been wary of her at first - it didn't take a mental giant to notice the tenderness in the way McCoy treated her and there was the fear that her being aboard the ship would alter the dynamics in Sickbay. It didn't take long before it was clear that McCoy wasn't going to change how he treated his staff and once Gem began to show that she had a talent for dealing with their volatile Captain, her place among them was assured. Very few of the nurses outside of Chapel would willingly deal with Kirk when he was sick or injured.

It didn't take them long to find out how she was able to handle Kirk so well as Gem wasn't stingy in sharing her talents with the nurses once she was accepted by them. Tired feet? Aching back? In a matter of seconds, Gem could have them feeling as if they had just gotten up from a nice nap. She didn't soothe every ache and pain, of course, but when the hours were long and had no end in sight, she could keep the staff functioning far better than any stimulant in their drug inventory without any of the side effects.

Of course, the acid test had come when Gem and Joanna met for the first time. McCoy breathed far easier when the two of them took an immediate liking to one another. As Joanna confessed to her Uncle Jim, if she couldn't be there to guard her father's back, Gem would do it for both of them. Jim felt a brief pang of sympathy for whatever future suitor Joanna might attract. The gauntlet they would have to survive would be daunting, to say the very least.

For Gem, everything she did was her way of contributing to the new family she had drawn around herself - McCoy as the father, Joanna and the nurses as sisters, Kirk and Spock as brothers. The Vians had stripped her of her birth family and had eventually paid the price. Anyone that might attempt to separate her from her new family or attempt to injure them in any way would receive no mercy.

Feeling the warmth that always signaled McCoy's approach to her, Gem looked up from the tribble she was playing with and smiled as he reached out to give her a light hug and began to tell her about his visit to the Yorktown station. She was a Daddy's girl and like Daddy's other little girl (well, actually Daddy's baby sister), Joanna? A force to be reckoned with.


End file.
